Madness and Joy
by Star24
Summary: Logan's reflections after Brainiac


__

Disclaimer : Don't own them don't profit from them blah blah blah.,..

A/N: Brainiac left too much unsaid. And why was Logan reading Leaves of Grass near the end? Here's my take on the missing end scene. The poem is Walt Whitman's from Leaves of Grass.

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. I haven't looked at that book since my college days. I remember it though. I think it was my Junior year, I was taking a course on American poets as part of my English and Journalism double major and of course we covered Whitman.

I remember the professor talking about how Whitman originally published it at his own expense only to be criticized for his open celebration of the human body and sexual love. Pretty radical stuff in 1885 I guess. The poems didn't really seem shocking to me, a child of the late twentieth century when talk of sex and portrayals of sex were everywhere you looked. I do remember that I liked the poems but didn't truly relate to what he was saying. I was too young and inexperienced. Life hadn't dealt me the pain and anguish I have since gone through especially when it comes to love.

When Max casually handed it to me tonight my mind was elsewhere, worrying about her to be exact, and I took it and put it down on the table next to my couch. She seemed a little disappointed so I looked at it again and then asked her,

"Where'd this come from?" At that she gave me a smile and responded almost too casually,

"S1W leader. He was using it to pass coded messages to his contact in the police. He doesn't need it anymore and I know you write poetry so I thought you might be interested in it."

"Thanks, I haven't read Whitman in years but I remember liking his stuff back in college." 

"There was another copy at the police station, I kept that for myself." Interesting. Why is she telling me this? Max and poetry? There's more here than meets the eye. I smile at her again and she smiles back. We are more comfortable with each other these days. After the chicken pox scare I was afraid she was going to pull away again and she started to but something changed her mind. I like to think it was the success we had with the gill girl and her mate. Max seemed really happy and relaxed the night we watched them swim off together. I think she needed to see a Disney ending. She's had too many tragedies in her life. 

I know that episode helped me. It gave me renewed hope that things can work out. It got me moving again on finding someone who can help us cure the bitch virus Manticore infected her with. I think Max is working on it as well. Borrowing my organic chemistry book? Not bedtime reading that's for sure. Max commented on my optimism after our visit to Wendy White when I told her maybe White could change. 

"You're just the eternal optimist, aren't you?" She smiled at me as she said that and I knew she was talking about more than White. It was about us as well.

"That's just my nature," I told her letting her know that I wasn't giving up on us.

Not a great conversation but when have Max and I ever been able to have deep meaningful conversations when it comes to our feelings? With us it's always been more underlying meanings and looks and touches. Guess that's why we've had such a hard time with this virus. She once called me "Logan Cale man of letters." When it comes to her it's more like "Man afraid to express his feelings in words." 

Now isn't the time to push the words. Somehow expressing it would only make it worse that we couldn't take our feelings to the next level and give them that physical expression we came so close to achieving. So we dance around things and avoid the topic. I have promised myself that once this thing is cured I'm not going to fool around anymore.

I want Max desperately and I know the feeling is mutual. No more lying to myself about it. Maybe that's why I feel more comfortable around her lately. Because I've made my decision and I know where I'm going with this. In the meantime I'm not tiptoeing around her anymore. 

* * * *

Asha interrupted just now. I left her a message earlier that she didn't have to leave town, that the police files on the S1W had been deleted. She stopped by to invite me out to celebrate with her and the gang but I made an excuse and sent her off. I know she wants our relationship to be more than what it is but I have no interest in her. The best is not to give her any encouragement. I feel bad that I agreed to go to Crash with her that one time. I was miserable the entire evening and it only gave her false hopes of something that will never be. And I did promise Max I'd make a broadcast about Brain for her tonight. Her memorial to the strange human computer who probably saved her life as well as the lives of the S1W's tonight. 

* * * *

The broadcast is complete and I'm not going out tonight. Asha and the gang will be just fine without me. I'd rather stay here with my thoughts of Max. I wish she would be with me tonight, I know she's hurting. Doesn't seem fair that so many people she touches end up dead either literally or virtually. Yet she's probably smart not to be here with me. It's hard enough not to touch normally. To sit here and watch her hurt and not be able to take her in my arms and give her what solace I could would be hell. For both of us.

So instead I pick up Whitman's book and start to skim through it. I realize that there is a paper in it marking a place. I open the paper and realize it's just a bad poem, evidently the coded message. But then I glance at the page whose place it was holding and begin to read.

****

One Hour To Madness And Joy

ONE hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!   
(What is this that frees me so in storms?   
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)   
O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!   
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,   
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.) 

O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me   
in defiance of the world!   
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!   
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of   
a determin'd man. 

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all   
untied and illumin'd!   
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!   
To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and   
you from yours!   
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!   
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!   
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am. 

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!   
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!   
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!   
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!   
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!   
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!   
To be lost if it must be so!   
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!   
With one brief hour of madness and joy. 

When I finish I am shaken. The feelings I have for Max are all there. The desire, the frustration, the anger at life for tearing us apart. Even my feelings at times that it would be worth the risk to feel her lips once again "to court destruction" in order to feel that joy I felt so briefly when she came back to me.

Then I wonder about her oh so casual gift to me of the book and her disappointment when I didn't seem interested. Was that page marked by accident of is there a method to this madness? I need to know so I pick up the phone and hit her speed dial code.

"Hello?" She answers on the first ring.

"Hey."

"Logan."

"Just wanted to be sure you got home okay."

"I'm here. Thanks for the broadcast." 

"Anytime." I pause briefly then plunge in. "Thanks for the book. I've been reading it."

Am I mistaken or does she pause a second too long before responding?

"Do you like it?"

"Actually I do. By the way there was a paper in it."

"Oh that. Just the coded message." Is her voice just a shade too casual?

"Did you happen to notice the page it was stuck in?" There I've asked. Wonder what her response will be. I'm holding my breath. There is silence for a long minute then I hear her take a deep breath and her voice softens.

"One Hour to Madness and Joy." My heart leaps. The tone of her voice confirms that it was no accident that the paper marked that particular poem.

"It's true you know." I tell her.

"Logan." Her voice breaks. I don't want to push her anymore tonight. It's enough knowing she marked the poem for me.

"Good night Max. Sleep well." _I love you. _I wonder if she can read my mind, hear the words I can't say to her yet.

"Good night Logan. Back at ya. "_I love you too. _I hear it in her voice. For tonight it is enough. I hear the soft click as she disconnects and I lay back on the couch, Whitman on the floor next to me, dreaming of better days to come.


End file.
